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by Emjen_Enla



Series: Prompted Works [19]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Psychics/Psionics, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Gansey is psychic, M/M, Multi, Post-The Raven King, Psychic Abilities, Road Trips, Sort of? - Freeform, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-31 23:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20248693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjen_Enla/pseuds/Emjen_Enla
Summary: Blue discovers something interesting in Gansey's bags. Or the one where Gansey gains psychic abilities. Written for Gansey Week day three "Road Trip."





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**Author's Note:**

> The title is horrible, I'm sorry.
> 
> Here I am continuing to only vaguely answer the prompts (can you tell that I’m using this character week to force myself to write the Gansey fics that have been floating around in my fanfic ideas document?). This fic takes place at the end of Henry, Blue and Gansey’s road trip, so I think it counts.

It took Gansey less than three weeks after his second resurrection to realize that he was now a psychic. It took him the better part of six months to admit it to anyone. In fact, he probably would never have told anyone if given the choice. Gansey is not a very forthcoming person with things about himself and all things surrounding his second death and resurrection were at the top of the list. Who knows how long he would have continued to pretend he wasn’t psychic if not for Blue. 

They were in Maine, on the beach. It was September and while the air was still pleasantly warm, the water was cold. Henry didn’t seem to ever get cold, so he was swimming. Gansey was sitting on the beach with a book about the Italian Renaissance he’d picked up at a bookstore in Indiana. Blue had taken a dip in the ocean too, but had come out after twenty minutes laughing and yelling about how Henry was insane before trudging back to the green Pig to change. They were all having fun, but there was a tension as well. They all knew that soon they’d have to go home, at least for the winter. Once they did that there would be jobs and college applications and hundreds of other adult things which they had been collectively pretending didn’t exist. None of them were ready for this to end.

Gansey was knee-deep in a particularly interesting chapter about an assassination attempt on the Medici family April 1478 when he heard Blue coming back. He turned around smiling, but there was something tense about Blue’s expression which made him pause. “Is something wrong?”

“Gansey,” Blue said. “Why do you have these?” She held out a deck of tarot cards.

Gansey froze. It felt like the world should have stopped but the sounds of the world continued on. The deck in Blue’s hand was the deck that he had bought off the internet just before they’d left on this road trip. It was one of those mass-produced Rider-Waite decks sold for people who didn’t know magic was real. The cards were cheap and flimsy and nothing like the lovingly handmade and impeccably cared for decks the women of Fox Way used. Gansey was fairly sure that those cards where the most poorly made thing he’d spent money on in at least the last five years and he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t invested in a better deck aside from that when he’d bought them he’d still be mostly hoping he’d been making everything up. Up until that point he’d just been having unusually vivid dreams that ended up coming true and just knowing random things during the day. The dubiously reliable sources he’d found on the internet (it was really hard to tell the difference between a real psychic and a faker from a website) had suggested that using tarot cards might help, so he’d bought the deck and given it a shot.

“Why were you looking through my bag?” Gansey asked. It was the only complete sentence he could form.

“I was looking for my shirt with the fringe,” Blue said. “I thought it might have gotten mixed in with your clothes.”

Gansey’s first thought was that shirt had probably been eaten by a washing machine at one of the numerous laundromats they’d stopped at over the course of the trip, because he hadn’t seen Blue wearing it in at least five states. His second was that he’d been foolish to bring the cards. He’d had so many close calls when Blue or Henry or both almost walked in on him using them or nearly went digging through his bag. Bringing them had been a recipe for disaster.

“You don’t need to look so scared,” Blue said. “I’m just curious. Where did you get them?”

“I bought them,” Gansey said. He wished he could say more, but he couldn’t get the words out.

“Why?”

“I was just fiddling around.”

Blue sighed but the sound was fond. “Gansey, you know that tarot is basically just a cool party trick if you’re not psychic, right? The cards can’t predict anything on their own.”

“I know,” Gansey said. “That’s why I bought them.”

For a minute, Blue just looked at him. For a minute, Gansey let himself hope that she wouldn’t make the connection. For a minute, he thought he might be able to get away with convincing her that the cards where just the result of a bored teenager with too much money. Then her jaw dropped and she groaned. “I’m an idiot. My mom literally told me months ago and I never made the connection.”

Gansey pulled back in surprise and--to be honest--fear. “What did Maura tell you?” He had been avoiding the women of Fox Way when they’d still been in Henrietta because he figured they’d be able to see this new change the instant he came close to them. He’d never realized any of them might be able to figure it out without his physical presence.

“Before we left she told me that I’d find you saw more than you had before,” Blue dropped down onto the sand next to him. She seemed surprised but happy. Gansey’s stomach was in knots. “I’ve been trying to figure out what she meant for months. I’d never considered that she might have been telling me you were psychic now. Of course, male psychics are pretty rare, so maybe I’m forgiven for that oversight, but Adam was psychic when he was bonded to Cabeswater and Cabeswater gave it’s life to bring you back so it makes perfect sense that you’d be psychic now.”

Somehow Gansey managed to get even more tense at the mention of Cabeswater. He spent most of his time desperately trying not to think about the magical forest and what happened to it. He shrugged in acknowledgment of what Blue had said and stared down at his book. Maybe she’d think he was engrossed in his reading and this conversation could be over.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Blue asked. Her smile had faded and now she looked serious and a little hurt.

Gansey shrugged again.

“Come on, Gansey,” Blue said. “I know you have your reasons. Just like you had your reasons for not telling us you knew you were going to die.”

Gansey winched. None of them had ever had a serious discussion about the fact that Gansey had known he was going to die almost as long as Blue and the women of Fox Way had. The closest they had ever come was the time Ronan had said that, “You know, not telling your friends you knew you were on a death list is like not telling your friends you had terminal cancer.” Gansey was pretty sure he’d owe Opal for the rest of his life for distracting Ronan before he could go on. The topic had never come up again, and Gansey wanted to keep it that way. “I didn’t tell you I knew I was going to die because I didn’t want to worry you and make it all about me” was a lot better excuse in his head than it was aloud.

“Come on, Gansey,” Blue said. “You need to start telling us things. You can’t keep bottling things up; it’s not healthy.”

“I didn’t tell you because I was afraid of what that implies about my resurrection,” he said before he had a chance to stop himself.

“What do you mean?” Blue asked, her nose wrinkling in the cute way it did when she was confused.

“What if I’m not actually Gansey?” the words poured out. “What if I’m just a collection of all of your images of me animated by Cabeswater? What if Gansey is really dead and I’m just such a good copy that even I think I’m really him?” He hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted to say that. Admitting it felt like lancing a wound.

“You’re still worrying about that?” Blue asked.

“You aren’t?”

“No,” Blue said. “I mean, we all worried about it at first, but you’re obviously really you.”

“But how can you be sure?”

“Richard Gansey, are you implying I wouldn’t recognize my own boyfriend?” Blue asked with a grin. When Gansey didn’t reply she shifted closer and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I know its really you.” she said. “I don’t know what to say to convince you of that, but I know it's you.”

“That makes one of us,” Gansey said quietly.

Awkward silence stretched between them for several moments, then Blue took a deep breath. “So you’re a psychic,” she said. “Tell me about it, unless you’ve already been initiated into the ‘mysterious psychic’ club.”

Gansey managed a little laugh. “What do you want to know?”

“Have you noticed any patterns?” she asked. “Most psychics are better at certain types of things. Like how Calla is psychometric. Have you noticed anything like that?”

“I’m not psychometric,” Gansey said.

“Thankfully,” Blue said. “Calla doesn’t talk about it much, but I get the impression that knowing the history of an object or person by touching them gets old really fast.”

“It’s really precise,” Gansey admitted. “Not like the predictions your mom and Calla make. I know what’s going to happen and half the time I know when too.” He didn’t tell Blue that this was how he knew he was going to be going to Harvard next fall. It seemed like the wrong time for that information.

“Then you could become a celebrity psychic if you’re ever stuck for a career,” Blue said with a smile. “Neeve was good with specifics; that’s how she got her TV show.”

“But is that bad?” Gansey said.

“It’s uncommon,” Blue said. “But given how uncommon the way you got your abilities are, that might not be surprising.” When Gansey didn’t respond she hugged him more tightly. “Give me an example?” she said with a smile. “What have your predicted?”

“I knew about that tornado we almost drove into in Illinois,” he said. It was the first thing that came to mind.

“That’s why you were so adamant that we should stop for the night,” Blue said. “So you were lying when you said you felt like you were going to throw up?”

“Not...entirely,” Gansey admitted. “I was exaggerating because I needed to come up with a legitimate reason to stop, but I was anxious and I always feel sick to my stomach when I’m anxious. It’s been like that since I was a kid.”

“That’s good to know,” Blue thought for a moment then asked, “Do any of the others know that?”

“No,” Only his parents and the therapist who he’d seen following his first death knew. Gansey didn’t talk about that stuff; it always felt like he was trying to get attention or pity when others had it so much worse.

“Then there’s your proof that you’re really you,” Blue said, sitting back and looking proud of herself. “If you were really a random conglomeration of our impressions of you then you couldn’t know things about yourself that we don’t.”

Gansey had never thought about it that way. He felt some little bit of the tension he’d been carrying for months release. He was sure he was far from done worrying about this, but it was nice to have a little reassurance for once.

“Hey, what’s up?” Henry asked, slogging out of the water and up the beach. He was shivering and his lips were in the process of turning blue. It seemed that he actually did get cold. “Are you having a moment without me?”

“Go put on some dry clothes before you get hypothermia,” Blue said. “Then Gansey’s got some news; turns out he’s been holding out on us.”

“Oh,” Henry said. “Anything bad?”

“Nope,” Blue said. “You’ll love it.”

“Then I’ll move quickly,” he said and dashed up the beach. Gansey and Blue watched him until he vanished behind the green Pig.

“If you’re good with specifics,” Blue said slowly, like she was working up her nerve, “did you ever try to figure out anything about our problem?”

She meant the problem of them kissing. None of the Fox Way women had been able to give a conclusive answer about whether or not Gansey would die for a third time if he and Blue kissed again, so they hadn’t risked it. They hadn’t talked about it, but they both knew the not knowing was weighing on them both.

“I haven’t tried,” Gansey admitted. “I was afraid of what the answer would be and I didn’t know how to explain how I’d come up with the answer anyway.”

“I’m scared too,” Blue said. “But we need to know.”

“What are you suggesting?” Gansey asked, though he already knew.

Blue pressed the tarot deck into his hand. “I think it’s time you asked the question.”


End file.
